Moderna Reveals Slightly Higher Rates of Myocarditis in Young People Who Received Its COVID-19 Vaccine

In a story carried by Yahoo! News, Prevention quotes Thomas Russo, professor and chief of infectious disease in the Department of Medicine in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB, regarding myocarditis as a rare side effect of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech​ COVID-19 vaccines. The story states that Moderna has reported a higher risk of this rare side effect than for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, but that myocarditis risks are actually greater for people who become sick with COVID-19. Russo stresses that rare cases of myocarditis that can develop as a result ofthe vaccine “tend to be very mild and transient — it seems to resolve in a few days.” But while the overall risk of developing myocarditis with any mRNA COVID vaccine is low, Russo says he’s been advising people in the highest risk group —16- to 30-year-old males — to get the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine over the Moderna vaccine. “At the end of the day, the risk is still small, but whatever edge you can get in life, go for it,” he says.